Singapore – The upscale hotel brand of IHG Hotels & Resorts – voco Hotels – has recently officially unveiled its first-ever location in Southeast Asia in Singapore. To mark the milestone, the brand recently mounted a pop-up along Orchard Road in January to showcase the refreshed hospitality brand to consumers. 

The new opening follows the rebrand of voco Orchard Singapore which was launched at the beginning of the year. IHG said that it aims to introduce guests to a new and refreshed dining and stay experience this 2022 which promises to be “charming, unstuffy, and playful.” 

In January 2022, two activations were located outside ION Orchard and voco Orchard Singapore. The pop-ups brought to life voco’s said charming and unstuffy character and aimed to reinforce its essence of “always staying interesting, but being reliably different.” 

IHG said voco Hotels are meant to be bold, contemporary and inviting, with playful touches throughout. The pop-up introduced highlights of a typical voco Hotel room – which features plush bedding and a cosy nook, encouraging guests to indulge in ‘Me Time’. 

Furthermore, the pop-ups’ experience were augmented with interactive brand and creative-led content to further create buzz and hype at the time of the installation’s viewing. 

“The vibrancy and playfulness of voco Hotels attract guests who are confident to be themselves,” said IHG. 

In line with this philosophy, voco Hotels invited local creatives and brands to spend time inside the hotel room, doing what they do best, and present to be ‘unapologetically themselves’, and use the room to create, unwind, and showcase their passions. 

Participated by Campari brand ambassador David Yeung, movement and mindfulness coach Brandon Chong, local lego artist Jeffrey Kong, as well as sustainable loungewear brand Rawbought, and local design label Peachier Studios; voco Hotels engaged consumers with a range of interactive lifestyle activities such as masterclasses, yoga sessions, and photoshoots, which were all held at the latter part of January.

In example, David Yeung conducted a live cocktail masterclass, walking viewers through the cocktail conceptualisation process of one of voco Orchard Singapore’s Signature Cocktails. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Kong, the founder of Artisan Bricks, which offers Lego sculptures and workshops to clients across Singapore, spent his time in the voco Hotels pop-up room creating an exclusive voco Orchard Singapore Lego sculpture, modelling the architecture of the newly-opened property.

In addition, the pop-up was made an opportunity to introduce for the first time in Singapore, voco Hotels bedding, which makes use of over 150 recycled plastic bottles, turning plastic waste into a sustainable sleep. 

IHG shared that another three hotels under the brand are set to open in the coming months which include voco Bonnington Dubai, voco Johannesburg Rosebank, and voco Seoul Gangnam. 

Jakarta, Indonesia –  The Indonesian market takes the lead in producing K-pop related videos on the short video platform TikTok, according to the latest data from the platform itself in collaboration with Kpop Radar, a K-Pop fandom data service operated by music start-up Space Oddity.

Indonesia takes up 16.4% of all K-pop related TikTok videos made outside of South Korea. This was closely followed by the Philippines (13.5%) and the United States (8.7%).

Overall, around 92.8% of these K-pop related TikTok videos were made outside South Korea.

Both the huge popularity of the short video platform TikTok and the rise of ‘Hallyu’ or Korean wave has resulted into over 97 million TikTok videos related to K-pop, thrice the previous 33.5 million K-pop-related TikTok videos made in 2019.

Jay Bae, head of global business development at TikTok Korea, said that TikTok has certainly made its mark in the music industry, joining the ranks of LPs, radios, and television

“We are grateful to be a part of this ongoing movement to support the genre and its community,” said Bae. 

Bae adds, “TikTok has changed how people consume and experience K-pop, with fans, from Korea, Singapore and across the globe, now having the space and tools to re-create and re-imagine their favourite content. As K-pop is so well-loved by the global TikTok community, we will continue to drive initiatives to support both the artists and the fans.”

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – As the pandemic amplifies digital adoption, companies from different industries have been developing their online content and embracing digital trends.

On airline airasia’s side, it has started efforts bolstering online content, where in last March, it launched ‘Project Kavvai’, a program that seeks to discover and develop the next big virtual idol to be showcased as a streaming digital avatar content creator in ASEAN.

After a long wait, airasia has finally announced its first virtual idol named Aozora Kurumi and is set to debut on 8 May 2021, which will be live-streamed on YouTube at 8:00 pm MYT.

Clad in a Victorian-style outfit with her trusted pet Jetson, Kurumi is designed by a renowned illustrator artist in the virtual idol community, Yueko. She was brought to life by industry veteran Iron Vertex, with vocals provided by a talent chosen from the ‘Project Kavvaii’ open audition. Kurumi will be responsible for generating exciting online content in gaming and lifestyle categories with live broadcasts while participating in engaging online and offline activities in the near future. 

According to airasia, the airline will also be working with pixiv, the top online community for artists in Japan and across the world, to produce an exclusive fan art contest for Kurumi in September, and a dedicated pixiv channel on airasia wifi that showcases exclusive content from the pixivision platform.

Rudy Khaw, the chief brand officer of airasia Group, said that they are proud to introduce the first virtual idol, which they foresee will be a game-changer in the future of streaming content in ASEAN. 

“As a digital company, the constant change in the way people consume online content drives us to explore cross-industry innovations with Project Kavvaii to stay relevant and ahead of trends. We are also very excited to have pixiv onboard this journey which would bring us closer to the community and hope to see Aozora Kurumi taking the content world by storm very soon,” added Khaw.

For more updates on Kurumi, fans may follow her on YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as Facebook.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – Airline airasia has launched a new program called ‘Project Kavvaii’, which aims to discover and develop the next big virtual idol – a streaming content creator in the SEA region who uses a digital avatar.

The new program seeks to provide potential talent with full resources to be the best virtual idol in the region and represent ASEAN on the world stage through charting a career trajectory, searching for potential clients, providing marketing support, tracking monetary channels from their streams, and supporting the business side of streaming.

The open audition will commence today 10 March until 28 March 2021 in ASEAN and the rest of Asia. Participants must submit a 5-minute video to introduce themselves. 

The winner of Project Kavvaii will get full access to a support team, receive a complete streaming setup, and secure a one-year contract with airasia as a paid content creator.

Rudy Khaw, the chief brand officer of airasia Group, said that the company has transformed from an airline to a lifestyle brand with the airasia super app, and now, they continue to innovate and be a game-changer as a virtual talent producer, believing that this is an opportune time to fast-track airasia’s growth leveraging on their digital capabilities, such as artificial intelligence and facial recognition.

“Certainly, the success of a virtual idol is about talent, not just the technology behind it. So we are looking for those who are multi-talented, creative, and have a larger-than-life personality to connect with virtual idol fans across ASEAN and beyond! This is your chance to be a full-fledged virtual idol and a part of a creative team that will shape the future of streaming content in the region,” said Khaw

airasia’s first virtual idol was created by a renowned illustrator artist in the virtual idol community, Yueko, and the character will be rigged and animated by industry veteran Iron Vertex to fit the personality of the virtual idol. Project Kavvaii’s first virtual idol is expected to start streaming in the second quarter of 2021.

Singapore – Southeast Asia media service Hepmil Creators’ Network (HCN) is now the first in the region to offer an inventory of reserved media on Youtube, including that of Esports and gaming channels to brands. 

This comes about from a partnership with US-based digital media company Bent Pixels, which owns the sales rights through its long-term partnership with YouTube.

The company also owns an independent influencer network in the US with a portion of its content creators emanating from major Esports organizations.  

The new offering currently expands HCN’s services, which was launched in April 2020 as a subsidiary of Hepmil Media Group, mainly to help brands connect with comic creators in the region. 

Hepmil Media Group CEO Karl Mak explains that with reserved media, SEA brands can now purchase advertising spaces on specific channels by their favorite creators across multiple countries from one single point of contact. 

He added, “they will fully own the advertising spaces on select channels during the engagement period without interference from competing advertisements, thus improving targeting efforts and optimizing media budget.”

Singapore – Twitch, Amazon’s live video streaming service has appointed its newest marketing head for the APAC region, Sandeep Suvarna

The appointment comes in the middle of the streaming service’s rapid expansion in the region. It is expected to form a critical part of a wave of new hires in Singapore, to grow the local Twitch community and further improve the service for its content creators, media partners, and publishers.

For his new role, Suvarna will be charged with overseeing Twitch’s marketing strategies for APAC audiences. 

“Twitch is redefining the way we think about entertainment, and provides a point of connection for millennials and members of Generation Z who visit the service to socialize with communities of like-minded individuals and creators,” said Suvarna.

This is not the first time that Suvarna will be spearheading a digital streaming service. Prior to joining Twitch, he most recently launched Fox network’s FOX+ in APAC. 

His credentials boast of over 15 years of marketing experience, working across prominent brands such as LinkedIn and Yahoo. 

“Sandeep’s expertise in marketing comes at a crucial juncture as Twitch expands its operations in the Asia Pacific,“ said Sunita Kaur, APAC Senior Vice President of Twitch.

“With Sandeep on board, we look forward to broadening our services, and showcasing both our gaming and growing non-gaming content, to a greater number of users across the region,” added Kaur.